(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the collaborative planning and reporting of tracking data, including location and status, for mobile assets between buyers, sellers, logistics providers, and federal agencies in a supply community, and more particularly to a method and system by which the seller (shipper), buyer (consignee), logistics providers (carriers; warehousing providers; and freight, customs, and insurance brokers), and federal agencies (U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Department of Transportation) can collaboratively plan the reporting of required tracking data for an individual shipment container equipped with a mobile asset tracking device and simultaneously access reports of the location and status of the individual shipment container.
(2) Description of Prior Art
The technology and services available to track mobile assets has advanced dramatically in just the last few years. Commercially available devices are now capable of monitoring many attributes of a shipment container or trailer, such as its location via Global Positioning System (GPS), route compliance, velocity (speed and direction), content volume, temperature, and evidence of tampering (door and seal status). These devices can be configured to “wake up” on a programmed interval and report this data via satellite during transit. Or, the device can be programmed to report only upon the occurrence of a specific event, such as hook-up, movement (start/stop), departure/arrival from a specified location, or crossing the pre-determined boundary (“geo-fence”) around the route. The data received by the satellite is processed by a “tracking service provider”, who then makes the resultant information available to the owner of the asset, typically via web access.
So-called duplex devices are now available. These devices can not only transmit tracking data, they can also receive new command instructions. So enabled, the tracking service provider can remotely re-configure a duplex device by transmitting new command instructions to it via satellite, changing, for example, its reporting frequency, wake-up conditions, or the data to be reported.
These devices are beginning to penetrate the North American truckload transportation marketplace as the technical and commercial utility improve with increased battery life (up to 5 years) and lower unit costs (about $400). About 2 to 3% of detachable trailers (100,000 of 3 to 5 million) are now equipped with satellite sensors. Early adopters report that the cost is justified by several operational benefits, such as improved customer service, increased asset utilization, and reduced losses. They now have improved information about the location of a trailer, and can provide more timely and accurate information about the expected time of arrival to the shipper or consignee. Accurate location information on every trailer allows the carrier to optimize the positioning of those trailers, thereby increasing trailer turns and asset utilization. Also, the unauthorized movement of a trailer (via the start/stop sensor or a tractor identification system) enables the carrier to immediately notify the appropriate authorities that a trailer theft is in progress. This increases the likelihood of recovering the trailer before its contents are removed.
The potential of these devices to contribute to homeland security is receiving considerable attention. For example, if the door sensor on an ocean container indicated possible tampering, then that container could be flagged as high risk and diverted for inspection. This would enable the CBP to adopt a targeted approach to border security, better utilizing their limited resources. For domestic rail and road shipments, the receiving location could similarly flag a container as high risk if the door had been opened while en route or if the trailer had breached the pre-determined geo-fence and take appropriate action.
These significant operational and security benefits suggest that mobile asset tracking technology ought to become standard business practice. Furthermore, as usage increases, the scale efficiencies in the manufacture of the sensor and the transmission and processing of the data can be expected to substantially reduce costs, dramatically accelerating adoption and penetration. Some believe that the cost/benefit profile will become so compelling that the federal government might even mandate the tracking of all shipment containers. But, even when the cost to track a shipment does decline to less than $0.50 per shipment (or 0.05% of the average transportation cost for a truckload shipment), a $250 mm annual cost increase in such a low-margin industry will certainly be contested.
The commercial utility of mobile asset tracking is presently constrained by the following three limitations. Overcoming these limitations will dramatically enhance the commercial feasibility of mobile asset tracking, and thereby ensure an essential role for this technology in ensuring the security of global commerce.                Information Visibility: Presently, only the owner of the asset (the carrier, in the application of freight transport) has real-time access to the tracking data on the mobile asset. Other users—such as the buyer/consignee and seller/shipper, the shipping and receiving warehouse locations, and the freight broker—do not have real-time access. They must contact the owner of the asset (by calling or accessing their website) for an update. Other potential users of the shipment position and status information—such as customs broker, the CBP agents, or the insurance companies that insure the mobile asset or its contents—do not have any ready access to the information, even though they might desire to have access or might benefit from having such access. The simple consequence of the current data distribution model—that the tracking data is directly available only to the party that owns the mobile asset—is that the asset owner is burdened with the role of distributing the data to the other parties who have a need to know the information, be it by phone or web access. In transportation, this results in significant complexity and costs as each carrier must establish a means by which each of their direct business partners (shipper, consignee, and broker) can access the information. Even then, indirect users (customs broker, CBP, and the insurance broker) may still not have ready access to the information. Each user will have to deal with the complexity of accessing many sources to obtain their information, which will frustrate attempts to automate the process of acting on the information (collection and analysis of the data, and identification and management of the exceptions). The result, of course, is that much of the data will never be effectively utilized, and in time be viewed as a non-value added expense. Rather, the tracking data must be made available, in real-time, to all parties that have a need to know the information, via a universal and easy-to-use reporting tool. Each party must be able to access all their business data in this reporting tool, for all of their business relationships.        Reporting Instruction Optimization: Presently, only the tracking service provider and the owner of the mobile asset can re-configure a tracking device. The owner, of course, can re-configure the device (simplex or duplex) by directly downloading new command instructions. This is typically done using a hand-held device that is hard-wired to the device. Duplex devices can be re-configured remotely by the tracking services provider, by transmitting the new command instructions via the satellite communication. The owner cannot, therefore, directly re-configure the device, but rather must provide the new command instructions to the tracking service provider. This arrangement renders it impracticable to frequently update the command instructions so as to optimize the data capture as appropriate for the real information needs of a discrete event, such as a freight shipment. For example, the geo-fence route compliance feature might be activated for trailers moving on high-risk routes. Or, the reporting frequency might be increased for shipments that are time-critical. Or, when the trailer is being moved empty, all reporting except for “departed origin” and “arrived destination” might be de-activated to extend battery life and minimize transmission costs. Even if it were practicable for the owner and the tracking service provider to update the reporting instructions for each tracking device for each discrete event, they would be doing so without input from the other parties that have a need for tracking data for that shipment. The risk, of course, is that the reporting instructions are then sub-optimized basis the needs of the owner only, with less than adequate consideration of the needs of the other parties. These limitations ultimately result in one of two outcomes. Either the owner collects “as much data as possible”, to reduce the risk of not meeting the information needs of the other parties, resulting in too much data, higher than needed operating costs, and reduced battery life or the owner optimizes the reporting rules against his own needs, and misses an opportunity to satisfy high-value needs of his business partners. Clearly, a solution that enables all business partners to collaborate in the selection of the reporting rules, for each tracking device on an event-by-event basis, is required to optimize the value of tracking the mobile asset.        Cost Attribution and Allocation: The first two limitations necessarily saddle the owner with the economic burden of the tracking technology. Insofar as the other parties do not have direct visibility to the tracking data and cannot influence the reporting instructions that control the data acquisition, it is difficult, if not impossible, to charge them for the information. Rather, the owner must recover their costs indirectly, by either increasing their rates (justified by improved customer service) or reducing their costs (via improved asset utilization). There is, therefore, a significant missed opportunity. The other parties—such as shipper, consignee, broker, custom broker or agent, or insurance agent in freight transportation—may well_be willing to pay a fair price for the tracking data, especially if it was his needs that controlled in the determination of the reporting configuration of the mobile asset for a particular event. For example, an insurance company might find significant value in being able to ensure that the geo-fence capability was enabled for every shipment moving in a particular lane or geography. The tracking costs for a particular shipment (above the carrier default) could then be attributed to the party whose requirements controlled in the determination of the configuration parameters. Without such a capability, the cost for a new technology that benefits an entire industry will be borne by a single group in the industry.        
Presently, there are no commercially available and practicable solutions that overcome these barriers and limitations. Consequently, the adoption rate of a break-though technology will be constrained. Clearly, these limitations must be overcome to maximize the potential of mobile asset tracking technology to improve service, reduce costs, and reduce risk, and it to this end that the present invention is directed.